@spacewig

Yes, I would agree that a meter is the most reliable way to expose in a controlled environment.

Shooting LOG or something linear uncompressed RAW especially, if you do not have displays with accurate and project specific LUTs loaded onto them.

If you're running around just grabbing footage it's not as easy, so you have to rely on other tools, experience being one of them of course.

What balazer says about display video is a good practice for the 2.5K as well, and has been how most if us used that camera. Same applies to the pocket camera with an adjusted application, because it seems as though the video LUT and screen together actually get you close to what a rec709 curve looks like, with about half a stop over something that appears clipped around 80 percent if you're using zebras.

I do think you can harm yourself by feeding the camera too much light, or too little. This is the same for the 2.5k raw or Prores. But, you do have a range that you can rely on:

In my experience, adhering to a bracket of -1.0 - +1.0 exposure yields the most consistent and pleasing image, with either side of the bracket trading noise for highlights or highlights for noise.

Stepping out of that bracket in either direction seems to put you in a place where you've got excessive noise (which actually looks okay on either cAmera if you have gone beyond -2.0) or individual clipped channels which leave you with strangely colored highs that you must balance -- soft clip.

The cool thing is that the camera still produces a very good image even in the event that you've starved it two stops or so, mostly because of the color that it retains: try pulling almost any other format out of the grave and see what happens to skin tones and greens/cyans.

RAW will open up a new image as well, or more data, but IMO will still want to be exposed within a similar bracket.

I actually do not have a light meter, as mentioned before I'm using a combination of zebras and a waveform, and like the 2.5K in a controlled environment, an external studio monitor

All of that helps to nail exposure, leaving the issue of appropriate amounts of IR filtration to be solved.

There's definitely a wrong way to expose with any camera. :)

Zebras are relative to the recorded video. Changing the display between film and video mode doesn't change what the zebras do.

There's no single correct way to expose with this camera. Every choice is a trade-off, and you have a lot of latitude. But here's my approach: I set the recording mode to film and the display mode to video, zebras to 90 or 100%, and then I just try to get the image to look as good as I can on the screen, erring on the side of overexposure, but of course looking out for zebras on anything with saturation that I want to preserve. I use ISO 800, or ISO 1600 if things are too dark on the screen at 800. With your camera set this way, you'll be recording three or four stops above what appears as white on the screen, and you can dig pretty deep into the shadows as shown on the screen - though of course they are noisy if you dig very deep. Blackmagic's given us very little in the way of tools to consistently get exposure, so it becomes a matter of getting used to the way the screen responds and how that correlates with the recorded video, and adjusting levels shot-by-shot in post.

My suggestion would be to approach exposure artistically, and try different things. Don't be afraid to make a mistake along the way and blow a highlight here or there, you'll eventually develop a third eye for exposure the more you tip toe that line with experimentation.

Sorry I am bit confused about the concern over using 100% zebras and overexposing shots?...surely setting your zebras at 100% means you will only be losing the most blown out of highlights and the topend and therefore be closer to overexposing than underexposing?

I thought that being conservative at around 90% zebras would mean the opposite...that you are more likely to make sure nothing gets blown out and be in position where you tend to under rather than overexpose?

/\/\/\ Read above. Pretty self explanatory.

Yep, 100% Zebra scares the crap out of me on both cameras.

That is the main issue with 100 zebras, it's the same on the 2.5K.

The green channel seems to go the fastest (but it may be my IR NDs, I can't tell really.)

I've actually noticed that even 90 percent isn't protecting you in all cases, and will sometimes drive you to underexpose too far.

mico on another forum said he had been using his waveform successfully and at first I couldn't get that method to work, now I'm using it on my TVLogic, combined with 75% Zebras and pretty much nail exposure consistently. The larger issue comes when using IR NDs, as I have an insane amount of trouble with the Tiffen 1.2 WW IR ND.

Recently tried Schneiders and am almost positive they were better on the camera up to 1.8.

From my tests, zebras at 100% are showing exactly when your recording has clipping in all three of the R, G, and B channels. (which is equivalent to clipping in the Y channel) You can still get clipping in any one of the R, G, or B channels without zebras showing.

Oh god it's making me hungry.

@balazer

I've been using 85% just to be on the safe side but I'll check. I seem to remember having a hard time pulling stuff back from 90% or 95%. I might be wrong though as I'm so mixed up learning both cameras.

@kholi I'm off for Canadian Thanksgiving but will try to get some raw files from the camera up after. Also this: "I'm completely fine with being in the trees and flowers club" = very funny!

If nothing else, I'm pretty sure I'll be the first person to film deep frying a turkey on the bmpc.